by Carmen Fox
My last Moon Festival at my father’s court had ended with me drinking too much wine and not getting enough sleep. Maybe the Wild Pack’s Moon Festivals were the same, maybe they were a more somber affair, but was Buck the person I’d want to accompany to such an important event? He’d been helpful, sure, but he lacked excitement. Leo had a pleasant disposition, too, but he at least carried himself with the confidence of a protector.
“We’ll see how long I’ll be in town.” I gripped the door handle. “Thanks, though. You really helped me out.”
He grinned and tipped his non-existent hat. “Any time. Any time.”
I got out and watched him drive off. Despite the early hour, the market at the far end of the street was in full swing. A floral scent wafted across, mixed with the earthy smell of vegetables. Two ladies with bulging shopping bags strolled toward me. One pointed at me then held her hand up to her mouth to whisper to her friend. Had she recognized me from the papers? Or was the presence of a stranger that big a deal?
I smiled politely and made my way past the wolf statue, which I took for a monument to the triple town’s werewolf-dominated past. Inside the library, a woman, around my age, sat behind an oversized desk. Her auburn hair was short and suited her flawless light-brown skin. She was typing on her computer with her right hand and held up the left to indicate I should wait.
“...D two.” She leaned into her computer screen with a squint, and eventually straightened. “Hello, Miss von Berg?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
Two prior emails had explained to her where I was from and what I was after, including my father’s Nordic origins. But if she’d expected a typical German blonde with a Scandinavian face, she kept her surprise well hidden.
She rolled her wheelchair around the desk and shook my hand. “I’m Natalie Daniels. Call me Nat. This town isn’t large enough to bother with last names.” She let out a melodic laugh.
It was a rare laugh. A laugh that came not just as a noise from a throat, but also as a feeling from a pair of inquisitive eyes and a big heart. A laugh that blew away my reservations and shyness and instantly connected with me.
“In that case, please call me Kensi.” I beamed back.
“What a lovely name.” Nat beckoned me to follow and rolled through a door into the deserted main library. A selection of books covered two of the tables.
The library’s layout was wheelchair-friendly both in terms of the sparse furniture and the height of the shelves, which came up to my chest. Overall, the surprisingly small space appeared as loved and cared for as the impressive landscaping that had greeted me in Marlontown.
“I hope I’m not late,” I said.
I was, by three minutes, but Americans tended to be less anal about that than Germans.
“Not at all. And you don’t need to whisper.” Nat gestured for me to sit. “One lady comes in every day to read, but I’m not expecting her or anybody else until this afternoon.”
“I like libraries. They remind me of my childhood.” I shook my head. “Not that they’re only for children.”
“No, you’re right. We live in a rushed world and people simply don’t make the time to kick back with a good read. Anyway, let’s get started.” She pulled one of the books toward her. “You said you’re interested in a woman called Maaren Kamlo, right?”
I nodded.
“I had some downtime yesterday, so I took the liberty of checking our historicals for you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Although the name Maaren Kamlo isn’t mentioned specifically, the Kamlos were also known in their circles as Lovel, meaning lover. As luck would have it, I did find an entry for Maarah Lovel, which is close enough for me to think I got the right name.”
My heart banged against my ribcage. Just once, and just long enough to make me notice it. This was real. My mother, once flesh and blood, had over the years become a feeling for me, a vague notion of warmth and love. Now the time had come to breathe life back into her, but was I ready?
Nat opened the oversized volume at a marked location and traced her index finger down the page.
“Here.” She angled the book so I could read.
Maarah Lovel, born on February fourteenth, no year given. Finding out my mother had been known by another name messed with my head. Maaren Kamlo was something that caused my body to respond. Maarah Lovel, on the other hand, read like a stranger.
I sat back and kept my disappointment to myself. “You said in their circles the Kamlo name was also known as Lovel. I don’t understand. What circles?”
“Oh. I thought you knew. Maarah was Roma.”
“A gypsy?” I touched my mouth.
“Gypsy” was most likely an offensive term, although I didn’t know enough about this ethnicity to understand why the word was supposed to be off-limits. Hell, I didn’t even know werewolf travelers existed, although clearly there was no reason why they shouldn’t. My kind might have taken its first steps on the American continent, but since then, we’d spread all around the globe and now lived in every country under the sun.
“Maarah’s tribe was part of the Roms, a group of Eastern Europeans that arrived in our triangle of towns after 1880.” Nat opened another book. “They used to live in the woods around here.”
“I see.” I scratched my head. “Anything about Maaren in particular?”
“As far as I can tell, Maarah walked away from her clan. She became an outsider when she left to marry a man who wasn’t part of their culture. Maybe he refused to pay a bride price. Whatever the reason, a woman leaving in disgrace was a big deal, as you would imagine from a patriarchal society.”
I gave a demonstrative sigh. “Is there any other kind of society?”
She closed the book. “I hear you. The glass ceiling’s alive and kicking in the twenty-first century. Anyway, we have more books on the history of the Roma who lived locally, but they’ve been checked out by our local history buff. In fact, he might be able to tell you more. There’s little he doesn’t know about this place.” Her cheeks turned a healthy pink.
Damn. My palms were moist, my mouth dry. Even though I’d prepared myself for the search, I hadn’t prepared myself for what I was going to find. And now that my past was within reach, I needed to learn more. I needed to know everything.
“Could you tell me how to get in touch with this historian?” I fingered the page that held the only reference to my mother. “This is important to me.”
“I can’t give you his details. He’s a private person, you know. But I could give him a call right now, if you like.”
“That would be great.”
Nat pushed away from the table. “I’ll be back in a sec. In the meantime, you might want to read this.”
While she was gone, I studied the article she’d placed before me. According to the author, the Lovel family used to be a big deal in their community. Whoever penned the book referred to Maaren’s father—my grandfather—as a king.
Without a recognized royal status, no werewolf would today be called a king. Then again, things were different when my mother, then in her thirties, met Dad. In werewolf terms, she’d been a young woman who should have looked forward to another fifteen decades or so by my father’s side. Instead, she got ten years.
I took a long, labored breath.
No point crying over the past. Dad did enough of that for both of us.
Why did my mother’s departure cause such an uproar, though? Dad had plenty of money, so he could have surely afforded the going bride price, from a couple of camels to a case-full of dollars. Besides, what better catch for a traveler’s daughter than a bona-fide future king?
Natalie returned to the table and gave me a thumbs-up. “I managed to get ahold of our expert. He’s agreed to meet you here in twenty minutes. You’re going to like him.”
“What’s the time now?” I had to be at home by ten, and it would be considered bad form to ditch Drake on my first day.
Nat glanced past my sh
oulder. “It’s nine.”
“Thanks.” That gave me time to greet the historian, arrange a more appropriate time to pepper him with questions, and then jog back to the house to meet Drake with a nothing-to-see-here face.
“All we can do now is wait, so how about a bottle of water?” Nat closed the books and arranged them on top of each other.
“That would be fantastic. You’ve been so nice to me. Can I help you?”
“Oh no. Let me work for my pay check.” She placed two of the volumes on her lap and wheeled over to a wall shelf to my right, in which she arranged both books.
What an amazing woman, and a prime example of why human company was preferable. She’d never heard of me, and therefore she had no expectations of how I should be. She simply accepted who I was. No stupid games or challenges.
If only the wolf world were that unassuming.
My mother had broken with her family and gone off to join another pack, and here I was, caterwauling about my fate. Despite moving from one male-dominated world to another, Mom had left her mark on our society, both as the alpha’s mate and as a beloved queen. Her human side had dispensed wisdom, her wolf had been fierce. How could I expect anything less of myself?
As alpha-in-waiting, I was supposed to be strong, and I needed to be to turn the plans I’d been making for the past twenty-eight years of my life into reality. Once I took the throne, things were going to change drastically for my pack. The era of men was over. The poor bastards just didn’t know it yet.
I got out my phone and looked at the picture I’d taken of my parents’ wedding photo. The dark-haired woman next to my father usually seemed a virtual stranger, but at this moment, I felt close to her.
Natalie returned with a plastic bottle tucked between her knees.
“You’re an angel.” I gulped the ice-cold water.
“Not if I have my way.” She tipped back her head and laughed. Her shoulders shook as she wheeled herself back to the desk in the foyer.
I returned my attention to the photo and my parents’ smiles. Long-ago smiles I never got to witness.
Dad got misty-eyed talking about my mother now. He’d kept her things and flew into a rage if anyone dared speak her name with anything other than reverence. He’d mated for love, even took the antiquated Moon Promise with her, which bound them together for eternity.
A promise to love one another beyond death.
How idiotic was that?
Humans didn’t live half as long as us, but even in their society, happily-ever-afters were a notion exiled to Hollywood movies. Love simply didn’t last, not at a time when unplanned pregnancies, the Internet, and a generous amount of alcohol were the accepted ways of finding a partner.
If my father had shown an ounce of common sense, he never would have taken the Moon Promise. The magic created that night had ensured the love they’d felt at that moment would never falter. If he’d simply married her during the day, like most werewolf couples did nowadays, he would have gotten over her death by now. Maybe he would have even chosen another mate, rather than wasting the rest of his life pining for a woman he’d never see again.
This amount of grief didn’t leave room for a daughter.
The sound of voices pulled me from my dark thoughts. I placed my phone on the table and leaned forward for a better view of the door.
Nat rolled into the room, face flushed, and gave a flirty laugh.
Behind her—
Uh-oh. Busted.
Drake’s frame pushed through the door. So much man in such a small space left me breathless. He had a wolf’s natural grace, but even so, there was a confidence in him that disarmed me. Despite his height, he didn’t stoop or bend his neck, not even now as he talked to Natalie.
In fact, he was acting as if he hadn’t yet noticed me.
But the tightening of my skin told the truth. It built slowly, from a prickle to the flutter of a hundred lashes. I surged to my feet, unsteady. A new wave of pain flooded me and, despite my efforts, made me flinch.
“Kensi.” Natalie gestured at him. “This is Drake. He knows the history of this place like no one else.”
Drake’s silver eyes fixated on me like tractor beams, while his dominance pulled and pinched at my body. My thighs trembled, and my knees were ready to call it a day.
A flicker swept across his expression.
He’d seen something in my face. Something that tugged on his lips.
Maybe it was too early, or I was out of practice. The alpha’s onslaught yesterday hadn’t left me half as shaken.
But I did have one advantage. This was a human library. My wheelhouse.
I put out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
With a tiny delay, he shook it.
My gaze refused to leave his frown, but my voice sounded cheerful enough. “Nat speaks very highly of you. I expected some kind of superhero.”
Drake’s dominance wavered.
“We’re old friends.” Nat patted his back, which in terms of their height difference manifested as a slap on the ass.
Why hadn’t I seen it earlier? Nat had blushed when she spoke of him. Were they seeing each other? Had they had a fling in the past?
I gave the smile of a woman who’d stumbled on a naughty secret. “I can see that.”
Drake rolled back his pheromones, giving me room to breathe again.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Nat wagged a finger at me. “You’re a bad girl. I knew I liked you.” She snorted a laugh. “Anyway, I’d better leave you two to it. See you later.” She patted him again.
I waited until she was out of earshot. “You make a cute couple.”
My voice was sharper than I’d intended. What did I care if the two of them had a flirtatious relationship? I was neither her nor his keeper.
“Why are you here?” His tone quivered, and he yanked back a chair. “Jonah made it clear that I’m supposed to accompany you.”
I sat back down. “Yeah, while I’m on the job. This isn’t the job. This here is private.”
He lowered himself into the chair next to me and leaned in. “No, he didn’t say while you’re on the job. For the duration of your stay.”
“That’s not going to happen. I understand why you feel you need to be my protector around other wolves, but this...” I gestured around me. “This is my world.”
He scoffed. “If you consider the human world your world, you’re deluded.”
“Watch it!”
“I like humans. I do. But they know jack about our urge to run free as wolves. About the thrill of the hunt, the joy of clamping our teeth around a young buck’s throat.”
So they knew as much as me.
I crossed my arms. “Who cares? There’s more to life than that.”
“Yes, all things they can’t comprehend: a loyalty humans only dream of; love that lasts a lifetime and beyond; a code of honor and unity. We may share a world with them, but we are not of their world.”
“You’re wrong,” I mumbled.
What gave him the right to trample over everything I clung to? To dismiss the life I’d built as a grand delusion?
“No more lone excursions, princess.”
Males didn’t dictate my life, especially not bullies like him. But the tightness in my throat stopped me from saying any of it.
If only to shut him up, I nodded. No doubt, I’d pay for this concession later.
Drake relaxed the frown on his face and withdrew the last of his dominance. “Nat said you’re interested in the Roma tribe that used to live in these parts. How come?”
I sat up. “Used to? You mean they don’t anymore?”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“You haven’t answered mine.”
His mouth quirked. “I asked first.”
“What are you, five?”
“Do you want answers or not? Up to you.” He got to his feet. “Anyway, it’s nearly ten. I told Raven’s parents we’d be by this morning.”
“What
? Why? This is my investigation.” I stood and glared at him across the table. “If you’ve taken over as PI, be my guest. I’ll be glad to go home.”
“I just assumed.” He exhaled loudly through his nose. “Hell, you’re difficult. Why must you fight back on everything? Do you want to meet with them or not?”
“Since you’ve already made the appointment, what choice do I have?” I flicked my wrist, as if dealing with jerks like him should earn me double the pay. “Give me a minute.”
I stalked to the bathroom, which was clearly marked with a humorous sign of a woman holding her knees in an I-can’t-hold-it pose. Of course, a visit to Raven’s parents would have been my first stop anyway, but this was my show. The sooner Drake got that, the higher my chances of success.
I splashed cold water over my face before performing an acrobatic act to dry it under the automatic dryer.
Nat’s information had deepened the mystery of my mother’s origins. Fate was playing a crummy game with me by placing at least a few of the answers in Drake’s hands. But my mother was dead, while Raven hopefully wasn’t, so I had to get my priorities straight.
I exited the bathroom and collided with Drake outside the door.
“Jeez, give me some space, will ya?” I glared.
He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows. Once again, his gaze connected with my mouth.
My cheeks warmed and my breathing sped up.
Dammit.
His sly smile deserved a good kick.
Instead, I shrugged as if Drake was a minor annoyance. Not even a blip on my radar. “Ready to go?”
He held up my phone. “You left this on the table.”
I snatched it from his fingers and mumbled my thanks. Having this oaf around had me all discombobulated. Not good when I needed my wits about me to find the missing woman.
We stepped through the door, with me taking the lead. He’d better get used to walking behind me from now on.
“Leaving so soon?” Nat’s chirpy voice skipped and bounced across the foyer. “I hope Drake can help you find what you’re looking for.”
“We’ll see.” I raised my hand. “I’ll be in touch.”
